One of the greatest promoters of dropsy, as every medical man knows, is the lancet, by which the good blood is extracted and a watery fluid substituted. Strong poisons of whatever nature they may be, either mercury, blue pill, calomel, bark, iodine, or any other of the ten thousand drugs from which relief is sought, and for which alcohols or other stimulants are persevered in, tend to vitiate the juices, and produce gout, dropsy, and numberless complaints from which the habitual water-drinker is exempt. No modern writer on dropsy attributes it to drinking water, nor, observes Dr. Johnson, is there anything in the physiology of the capillary system of vessels which can warrant such an opinion; on the contrary, _drinking largely of diluting liquids is always recommended as an important part_ of the cure of dropsy. Dr. Gregory, author of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, states that "no diuretic medicines are likely to be of service, without very copious dilution;" and adds, "_there cannot be a greater error_ than to imagine that dropsical accumulations may be lessened by withholding liquid." From the returns of 1841, within the city of London and bills of mortality, amongst a people opposed to the use of cold water in any way, we find that from dropsy alone the deaths amounted to 584. Is not this fact alone sufficient to carry conviction to our minds, that dropsy is not the effect of water drinking? It may be safely affirmed that those who never take physic and who adhere to a water diet, will never be attacked with dropsy. This complaint, except when of long standing, or under very extraordinary circumstances, is generally curable. XXXII.--SMOKING. "Though smoking is decidedly prejudicial to health, it is not so bad as drinking to excess." "Smoking irritates the nerves and promotes the secretion of saliva, which is withdrawn from digestion."[5] [5] Dr. Schmidt, of Berlin, is of opinion, that the saliva, and not the gastric juice, is the digestive agent; and in this opinion he is supported by Dr. Beaumont, of America. Dr. Richers stated to me that he attended a lecturer who, from some defect, could only swallow a portion of his saliva; that in consequence, during the course of an hour's lecture, he would throw off nearly a quart of saliva. "By blunting the nerves, a man, as in drinking, may stand a great deal of smoking without being visibly affected by it." "A person who, previously to undergoing the water-cure, could drink a gallon of fermented liquor, may, after it, be affected by a single glass--from the fact of his nerves having recovered their sensibility." "Persons who previously to the treatment were great smokers, are frequently rendered ill by very little smoking after it." "The nerves are strong and vigorous in proportion to their sensibility and freshness.--He who goes through a thorough water-cure treatment, gains a great moral as well as physical command over himself."